Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Kathryn Xian, Executive Director of the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery (PASS), called to Washington to testify on fishing abuses
by Larry Geller
__________
Update: see the announcement here (Executive Session - Fishing for Justice: Slavery and Human Rights Abuses at Sea.
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The session of the House Committee on Natural Resources will be live-streamed from https://www.facebook.com/NRDems/ on December 6, 
In addition to Xian, the panelists are scheduled to include:
Mark Lagon, formerly ED of the anti-human trafficking non-profit Polaris Project and Director of the State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP)
John Connelly, President of the National Fisheries Institute
Clare Ogden, Administrator, Centennial Fellows Program at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service (SFS)
The panel moderator will be Paul Greenberg, author of books including "Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food”
Kathryn Xian is the founder of 'Girl Fest Hawaii' whose mission is to prevent violence against women and girls through education and art. Girl Fest Hawaii was instrumental in passing the nation's first state law outlawing sex-tourism, a law which became become a model for other states. As ED of PASS she lobbied for the passage of Hawaii’s first labor-trafficking law and reforms to the state's promoting prostitution statutes.
She is currently a leader in the effort to eradicate human trafficking and other labor and human rights abuses discovered in the Hawaii long lines fishing fleet.
Monday, November 28, 2016
Johan Galtung’s view from Europe: The State of the World Right Now: A View
The State of the World Right Now: A View
28 November 2016
#456 | Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service
“View” meaning not only a glimpse from above, but a position taken on the world on which the US electorate is now dumping Donald Trump.
That world is today basically multi-polar, maybe with 8 poles: Anglo-America, Latin America-Caribbean, African Unity, Islam-OIC from Casablanca to Mindanao, European Union, Russia more region than state, SAARC from Nepal to Sri Lanka, ASEAN, Australia-New Zealand.
And multi-regional Shanghai Cooperation Organization, SCO, with China and Russia, Islamic countries, India and Pakistan.
There is a waning state reality, smaller states being increasingly absorbed in regions.
There is a waxing region reality with the above eight; adding West Asian, Central Asian and Northeast Asian regions, maybe eleven.
There is a global reality based on IGOs, inter-governmental organizations with the United Nations on top; TNCs, the transnational corporations with the US-based on top so far; and INGOs, international non-governmental organizations, with religions on top.
Insert into all of that something concrete from William Blum’s Anti-Empire Report #146 and his Rogue State. From WWII, the USA has:
- Attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically elected;
- Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries;
- Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders;
- Attempted to suppress populist or nationalist movements in 20 countries;
- More involved in the practice of torture than any other country, performing, teaching, providing manuals and furnishing equipment.
Then, insert President Xi’s proposal November 17-23 2016 for Latin American countries and 21 APEC countries meeting in Lima, Peru:
- FTAAP: Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific; inclusive, for all;
- RCEP: Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, also inclusive as opposed to TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership, excluding China.
TPP to FTAAP moves the power center from Washington to Beijing.
Into this reality dump Trump who has pledged to ditch TPP.
That does not mean buying FTAAP-RAW; maybe more a set of Chinese divide and rule bilateral deals than a real multilateral IGO. However, negotiating deals with China should appeal to Trump the businessman.
Now, given the 5 Blum points from US history, will a move of one important power center from Washington to Beijing be permitted by the US military-economic forces, Pentagon-Wall Street, in conjunction? Will they prevail upon Trump to change his mind and ditch the pledge to drop TPP, or simply move ahead along the lines of points 1-5?
Depends on Congress overriding Trump Executive directives and Trump vetoing that, and so on. That in turn depends on to what extent Congress is now GOP Republican or Trump Republican. Nobody knows.
There is more going on in the world than USA-China relations.
China-India trade is overtaking China-USA trade before China overtakes USA economically. Both are Asian countries, both are SCO. A concrete implication is that a decreasing percentage of world trade deals is made in US dollars as they recognize each other’s currencies.
At the same time the top country in the EU, Germany, is in great difficulty because a leading corporation, Volkswagen has problems with its emission swindle, paying hefty fines, now sacking 30,000 workers. Now is the time, if ever, for France-Italy-Spain-Sweden-Czech to produce jointly an alternative car.
At the same time the bottom country in the EU, Greece, is doing well, playing the Chinese card. China is buying Piraeus, making Greece the entry point for Chinese business in Europe with products, goods and services at highly acceptable quality over price ratios.
At the same time US economy is running out of options, losing its hold on EU with Brexit. The Bratislava Summit of 27 EU members 16 Sep 2016 refused to fight US wars. That may tempt USA even more to wage their own with mini-nukes &c. But Trump foreign policies with Russia, China and in East Asia may deprive them of arguments for doing so.
However, what does Trump have to build upon to make America great again economically? With an American economy servicing huge debts, with freshly printed dollars far beyond the value of the economy (but still no inflation), with a risky finance economy in command, and little of quality to export but arms, and some cars? Jobs to build infrastructure have to be financed and he has promised lower taxes. Although reforming tax codes may stop some loopholes.
Possible answer: increased foreign trade, based on better foreign relations, seeing others as business partners, not as threats. Just wait, one day USA may trade with North Korea, competing with China.
If Trump can lay his hands on money flowing in from abroad, and make trading companies invest in the much lagging US infrastructure.
Yet, the counter-forces are strong. William Blum #146:
- Obama in the UN 2013, declared USA exceptional and Russia one of the three threats to USA along with IS and the ebola virus. Putin-bashing.
- A million refugees from Washington warfare currently overrun Europe; from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Pakistan.
- US fight Assad to use Syria for a pipeline to bring gas from Qatar to Europe to undercut GazProm, Russia’s largest corporation.
- Washington abandoned the ABM treaty and changed its war doctrine to permit US nuclear first strike.
- An independent EU would forbid member states from stockpiling US nuclear weapons, having a US ABM site, or a base close to Russia.
- Since 1980 USA intervened in Iran-Libya-Lebanon-Kuwait-Iraq-Somalia-Bosnia-Arabia-Afghanistan-Sudan-Kosova-Yemen-Pakistan-Syria-14 Muslim.
- USA surrounds China with aircraft, fleets, military bases in Japan-South Korea-Philippines-the Pacific-Australia, patrolling the waters.
- Crimea never voluntarily left Russia. A dictator made them do so.
Everything is “rigged” for a Clinton tenure of belligerence.
Instead they got Trump foreign policy. Against very heavy odds.
_____________________________________
Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is founder of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment and rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU. Prof. Galtung has published 1670 articles and book chapters, over 450 Editorials for TRANSCEND Media Service, and 167 books on peace and related issues, of which 41 have been translated into 35 languages, for a total of 135 book translations, including ‘50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,’ published by the TRANSCEND University Press-TUP.
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 License.
Friday, November 25, 2016
Will Hawaii remain a leader in solar installation? Or rather, how do we salvage a wounded solar industry?
“
To understand the effects of smart solar inverters on utility systems, there’s no better place to study them than Hawaii. The state has the highest electricity rates in the United States, which, along with incentives from the utility, has given residents and businesses powerful motivation to install their own PV systems. The state now has about 20 times as many solar installations connected to its grid as the average mainland state does, and that trend is likely to continue.—IEEE Spectrum
”
by Larry Geller
IEEE Spectrum is a remarkable magazine in several ways. It’s technical, of course, since it is published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Yet most of the articles are accessible to a more general audience.
The pull-quote above is from a current article in the magazine: Can Smarter Solar Inverters Save the Grid? and is all about Hawaii.
It turns out that programmable inverters are actually the best way to solve the grid instability issues presented by the interconnection to HECO’s power grid of so much rooftop solar. What kind of inverter are they talking about? Check out the article, it’s not so complicated. In a nutshell, the inverter reacts on its own to correct voltage or frequency imbalances, performing a service to all grid users.
Sending commands from a central point to control thousands of inverters simply won’t work properly. This will.
Now, as to the pull-quote’s rejoicing that the trend in solar installations is likely to continue, unfortunately not. Or not yet, anyway. Check out Henry Curtis’ article Oops, The Small Print, Gotta Read the Small Print (ililani media, 11/25/2016). If I understand the numbers correctly, installations appear already to have ground to a virtual halt.
Could it be that as usual, Hawaii is just more technically challenged than other places? The IEEE article suggests the opposite. Or is it that we are not good at planning? Perhaps. That has consequences. The solar industry brought us job growth and then expired. Did it have to?
If you don’t have solar panels installed on your roof yet, check out this article while you wait.
Update: Henry reviewed the IEEE article in more depth, also pointing out some errors. See: Smart Solar Inverters Stabilize Electric Grids in Hawai`i (ililani media, 11/26/2016).
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Audit faults Hawaii’s Dept. of Taxation in a slick and accessible report format
“
We have serious concerns about DoTAX’s extended delay in promulgating rules. It has been more than ten years since the current form of the film tax credit was enacted. … We also found that the film office’s analysis of film tax credit data does not measure the incentive’s true costs and reports economic impacts that are based on incomplete and overstated data.—Audit of Hawai‘i’s Motion Picture, Digital Media, and Film Production Income Tax Credit
”
by Larry Geller
Hawaii taxpayers are likely footing the bill for large tax credits given to film producers while the benefits to the state cannot be defined by the Hawaii Film Office or the state Department of Taxation.
Les Kondo, the new Legislative Auditor, has a way with words—that is, using them clearly and effectively for public benefit. As ED of the state Ethics Commission he explained the ethics statutes in plain language to legislators. They didn’t like what they heard, but that’s a long-running theme in our state government. Now at his new post he has found a way to make the formerly dull business of investigating the state’s business accessible.
Just-released audit 16-08: Audit of Hawai‘i’s Motion Picture, Digital Media, and Film Production Income Tax Credit or the summary here is a well-presented as a modern magazine article. Imagine: an attractive audit report!
Now, a good audit report is not generally measured by its form, but rather, by its thoroughness and accuracy, perhaps. Sure. And then, who reads it? We have to depend on news 
Click on the image at right and gaze upon the summary of this report. It has a large photo illustration, sub-heads or breakers that provide useful leads to the material, and even sidebars, pull-quotes and illustrations. The full report is equally attractive.
This report resembles a magazine article more than a government audit, and is much more readable and accessible than previous reports. I say kudos, Kondo.
Les Kondo has done the work for the news media. I’m also wondering if ordinary citizens will now find the reports interesting enough to skim through them and learn about the underlying issues of law and governance the reports raise.
Failure to have required administrative rules or to properly administer a program and be ready to account for it to the legislature are not uncommon themes. Reading audit reports is one way to be informed about the efficiency of our government and how well it administers our hard-earned tax money.
There’s a lot that needs improving in Hawaii’s state government
Having information accessible to the public means that it is easier to highlight where we need to chase after government administration to get its act straight. The pull-quote at the top of this post provides some suggestions.
First, can you imagine allowing a decade to pass without required administrative rules? Second, who has been watching this for the past decade? Which parts of government should be held accountable?
Any good story needs some conflict
There is conflict and drama in the report as well. The Auditor and the state Attorney General clash on whether the Use Tax is an out-of-state expense. Note that the AG does not have the last word. In these cases it must be kept in mind that he is the client’s (the agency’s) attorney.
The audit notes that paying tax credits for out-of-state business expenditures is not the intent of the statute. How long has that been going on? Ten years? That’s why the rules are needed. A side question: can tax credits improperly paid be reclaimed?
Monday, November 14, 2016
Trump hasn’t taken office yet the mythology of equality in America is being dashed already
“
…We’ve seen and witnessed a group of young black teens being harassed by another group of white teens calling them the N-word and telling them that they need to go back to Africa, and if they want to go back to Africa, not to worry, that Trump sends them there free. So, it was really crazy and——Democracy Now, 11/14/2016
”
by Larry Geller
Contrary to much contemporary wisdom, the United States has one of the longest uninterrupted political traditions of any nation in the world. What is more, that tradition is unambiguous; its meaning is articulated in simple, rational speech that is immediately comprehensible and powerfully persuasive to all normal human beings. America tells one story: the unbroken, ineluctable progress of freedom and equality. From its first settlers and its political foundings on, there has been no dispute that freedom and equality are the essence of justice for us. No one serious or notable has stood outside this consensus. You had to be a crank or a buffoon (e.g., Henry Adams or H. L. Mencken, respectively) to get attention as a nonbeliever in the democracy.
The above is from p. 54 of The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. A search took me to this book and this page, I have’t read much else of it and what I have leads me to say I can’t recommend it. But we seem to have one new name to add to Bloom’s list.
Of course, I disagree with the basic thesis. Our history of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the mass internment of Japanese-Americans, the Native American genocide, and the suppression and near-genocide of Native Hawaiians contradicts Bloom very clearly. Not to mention the current wave of voter suppression and women’s never-ending struggle for equality and basic human rights.
Each country has its own mythology. Bloom is describing ours. Perhaps it should remain as an ideal, even though it doesn’t ring true otherwise. One day, perhaps, it might be achieved… though not apparently any time soon.
Social media and alternative media including Democracy Now report the abuses currently rampant across our land, revealing that the “unbroken, ineluctable progress of freedom and equality” remains actually as broken and dubious as ever.
No sense of this appears in our shrunken daily newspaper. It seems to me to be essential that this be reported, so we may deal with it as concerned citizens. Somehow.
Trump is the enabler, but I am saddened by the eruption of racism and bigotry on the streets, in the tweets, and in schools.
From today’s Democracy Now, a high school sophomore from New Jersey, speaking to the reporter at a protest:
… A friend I know went to high school on Wednesday, and people were saying racial—or religious slurs toward Islamic people who go to her school, and things like that. It’s definitely prevalent.
A parent:
We started to hear that there are violence or abuses against the people of color, children of color, in rural neighborhoods in the United States, and that’s a really dangerous sign. Here in New York, diversity is embraced, but you don’t know what is going to happen, even in a progressive state like New York. And we’re really concerned that a Trump administration is going to incite violence, hate, racism and other dangerous policies, which could affect or threaten safe environment for parents to raise kids.
In time, perhaps over several generations, the mythology might have prevailed. Now, I am not so sure. It hurts deeply to see how easily the racist, misogynistic underbelly of this country has come to the fore. The students are acting out what they learned from their parents. Now they are repeating the abuse, setting back the possibility of democracy, freedom and equality for another generation.
Friday, November 11, 2016
1998 book predicts “something will crack”
“
One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the
past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals,
will be wiped out.—Richard Rorty
”
“
In Germany there was a yearning for fascism before fascism was invented.—Chris Hedges
”
by Larry Geller
This snip from a 1998 book has been retweeted more than 6,000 times at this writing:
[M]embers of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will
sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to
prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported.
Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar
workers themselves desperately afraid of being downsized—are not
going to let themselves be taxed 10 provide social benefits for anyone
else.At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will
decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a
strongman to vote for someone willing to assure them that, once he
is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond
salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the
shots....One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the
past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals,
will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into
fashion.... All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel
about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will
find an outlet.[Richard Rorty, Achieving our Country, 1998, available as an ebook from openlibrary.org] [but hurry up, the waiting list is growing…]
Chris Hedges quotes this same passage from Rorty more completely in his Death of the Liberal Class, 2010, p. 35:
Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. The words "nigger" and "kike" will once again be heard in the workplace. All the sadism that the academic Left has tried to make unacceptable to its students will come flooding back. All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet.
and then Hedges goes on:
The hatred for radical Islam will transform itself into a hatred for Muslims. The hatred for undocumented workers in states such as Arizona will become a hatred for Mexicans and Central Americans. The hatred for those not defined as American patriots by a largely white mass movement will become a hatred for African Americans.
Where is this possibly headed? Hedges wrote (p. 34), referring to right-wing groups:
But, as I was told by Fritz Stern, a scholar of fascism and a refugee from Nazi Germany, "In Germany there was a yearning for fascism before fascism was invented." This is the yearning that we now see, and it is dangerous.
Greg Palast: The Election was Stolen – Here’s How
“
Starting in 2013 – just as the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act – a coterie of Trump operatives, under the direction of Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State, created a system to purge 1.1 million Americans of color from the voter rolls of GOP–controlled states.—Greg Palast
”
by Larry Geller
If you watch Democracy Now, you already know this.
Please do click over to gregpalast.org, read his article, and watch his short, 4-minute video.
I’ll snip his illustration of what happened to this election, and one reason that Donald Trump got “elected.” He is describing how a voter purge system called Crosscheck was used to steal the votes of minorities and so swing the election to Trump:
Trump victory margin in Michigan: 13,107
Michigan Crosscheck purge list: 449,922Trump victory margin in Arizona: 85,257
Arizona Crosscheck purge list: 270,824Trump victory margin in North Carolina: 177,008
North Carolina Crosscheck purge list: 589,393
As you read his article, please keep in mind that this is nothing new. Palast has been reporting on Crosscheck for some time. Had the purges been stopped, the outcome of the election would have been very different.
But our government didn’t intervene, and so we are in our current predicament.
Monday, November 07, 2016
“Would we want ivanka trump?” as our next School Suprintendent in Hawaii?
“
“Would we want ivanka trump?” –the Oprah Network
”
by Larry Geller
As a transplant from New York City to Hawaii, one thing I miss is the political activism, the concern, the opinions that motivate New Yorkers to action on most any important subject. The media encouraged activism by supporting a variety of views from Right to Left, from Conservative to Liberal, or any other way one chose to slice public opinion.
Now School Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi is on her way out. It took a while, didn’t it, and still, media are not really examining what qualifications a school superintendent should have. Nor was there any great uprising on the streets when a person with no pedagogical experience was chosen to lead our statewide school district.
When faced with a similar situation, New Yorkers rebelled.
Here’s a re-run of my May 2013 article:
Sunday, May 05, 2013
A tale of two Cathies—New York parents rejected a school chancellor with no educational background, Hawaii parents did not
by Larry Geller
New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg appointed Cathy Black as school chancellor in 2010 even though she had no suitable credentials. She was a publishing executive with no experience in education.
New York parents revolted, and she was booted out of there.
Kathryn Matayoshi was also appointed in 2010, by Hawaii’s appointed Board of Education. The BOE has a decided business background itself, and it appointed a person in its own image. Matayoshi is an attorney, who served, for example, as executive director of the Hawaii Business Roundtable. Like NYC’s school CEO, she also lacks credentials in the field of education.
Cathy Black was booted out, but Kathryn Matayoshi is still in office.
The tale of the NYC Cathy is alive again as a court ordered some of Mayor Bloomberg’s emails to be released publicly after a long struggle.
Now here's a NY Post editorial from this weekend after the Cathie Black emails were released and revealed her to be as clueless about education and unqualified for the job as her critics said she was.
[Perdido Street School, A Tale Of Two NY Post Cathie Black Editorials, 5/5/2013] [scroll down—the link to the original NY Post editorial no longer works, but there is this]
That article will take you into the heart of the New York issue, including a description of the psyops strategy intended to slide Black into office:
They courted celebrities such as fashion designers Donna Karan and Diane von Furstenberg. They tried Caroline Kennedy, who wisely didn’t respond. “Would we want ivanka trump?” wondered Black in one e-mail. The jewel in the crown was Oprah, who sang Black’s praises in a newspaper interview and sealed the deal.
[New York Post, The Oprah network, 5/4/2013] [use link above]
I was aware of the two Cathies similarity when they both were appointed. But did anyone but me care that our new schools superintendent was just as unqualified as New York’s Cathy Black? It didn’t seem so at the time, and it doesn’t appear so now.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike license.
Permalink posted by Larry @ 5/05/2013 05:31:00 PM
Political appointees who are qualified to do the job? Don't go there. Down that road lies madness. Soon you will babble of measuring job performance, the end of nepotism and a transparent government. Madness, sir, madness.
# posted by 
Anonymous : May 6, 2013 at 7:55:00 AM HST
